Tag Archives: tweak

iOS 7 comes with lots of features to love, but its uncomfortably bright UI is not one of them. Save for a handful of stock apps and system components - Stocks, Notification Center, Compass - almost everything is a bright, in-your-face white. As someone who keeps display brightness across all devices at around 20-30% with f.lux on, I find iOS 7 quite repulsive at times. Some app developers understand this: Tweetbot, Alien Blue, Reeder, Pocket, etc. all come with dark modes for easier reading. For the rest, we will have to wait for Apple and other developers to respond to user feedback.
Or, if your device is jailbroken, you can install Eclipse. Launched earlier today, it allows you to enable dark mode throughout iOS, including third-party apps! Awesome, isn't it? Read More

iOS 7’s focus on minimalism and a flat UI means that some of the elements of the OS might end up looking a little too drab. The battery indicator is not necessarily the most noticeable part of iOS, but there can be no denying the fact that it remains visible at most times. This means that there is a likelihood of users getting bored of the battery icon pretty quickly. Previously, we have covered Vox, a Cydia tweak that offers plenty of alternatives to the default battery indicator on iPhone. Despite the variety it offers, the icon replacements offered by Vox revolve around a single theme, which is a circular battery. Alkaline isn’t as feature-rich as some of its competitors, but it certainly has a sense of uniqueness about it. The tweak comes with the potential to support more themes in the future, even though it only has two available at present.
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Not many Cydia packages can give any sort of competition to the level of variety offered by Winterboard to jailbreak users, but only if they are into theming and don’t really care about enhancing the functionality of their device. There are many other feature-specific Cydia tweaks that let you make some great changes to iOS, but most of them cater to only particular niches, like the recently covered FolderEnhancer. Springtomize is among the very few Cydia tweaks that offer system-wide customization options, allowing users to tweak everything from visual aspects of iOS to its frequently used features. The famous Cydia app has now been updated to support iOS 7, but unlike most other recent updates, Springtomize 3 offers features that can work only on this latest firmware update. The new App Switcher tray, Control Center, folders and the Home screen can all be customized using Springtomize 3, and that too in a really simple manner.
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Soon after the release of iOS 7, we covered a method that exploited a bug found in the updated firmware to let users create folders within folders on their iPhone. This feature is quite reminiscent of the famous jailbreak tweak named FolderEnhancer, which brought the concept of nested folders to life on older versions of iOS. While iOS 7 improved many aspects of folders, it still didn’t bring nested folders and the ability to customize icon layout to the mix. This is why FolderEnhancer for iOS 7 is still a relevant release, as it lets users create multi-level folders on their iOS devices, and can also be used to change the number of icons that appear in each row and column of folders. Different aspects of folder-related animations in iOS 7 can also be controlled via the tweak, and you can even change the behavior of folders once an app has been launched.
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iTunes 11 has a gorgeous untitled feature that automatically changes text and background color to match the colors used in an album's artwork. As a fan of the feature, I strongly expected it to make its way to iOS 7's stock Music app. Apple hasn't managed to do that yet, but the vibrant iOS jailbreak community has come up with not one, but two solutions. Over on Reddit's iOS jailbreak community, the idea of dynamically changing button accents and colors in iOS 7's Music app's 'Now Playing' screen was suggested a couple of weeks ago. Two developers independently got to work on it, and then released it on the same day this past weekend. We discuss both the tweaks - ColorFlow & Colorize - after the jump! Read More

You are sure to find Cydia tweaks for even the most minor parts of iOS, specially if you want to make visual alterations to a particular UI element. Even if a tweak isn’t too specialized for just one aspect of iOS, it often ends up focusing on a single area of the firmware, like the lock screen or icons. CustomLS and Transparency are just two examples of such specific Cydia tweaks, despite the fact that both of them come packed with a good number of customization options. HideMe7 is a similar tweak, but its biggest advantage lies in the fact that it can let you make changes to all the important parts of iOS. Thanks to this package, you can hide UI elements from the lock screen, Springboard, folders, Notification Center, and Control Center. Read More

The release of the last two iOS jailbreaks has heralded the start of a waiting period for popular tweaks to get updated to support more recent versions of the platform. With iOS 7, we have already seen most of the high-profile tweaks get updated for the latest devices and firmware versions, but the real absentees are always the useful but somewhat obscure packages. You might not remember StatusBulletin, but the tweak certainly garnered a lot of praise from the jailbreak community at the time of its release. StatusBulletin shrunk notification banners to fit the status bar, and made the contents of the banners move along just like news tickers. TinyBar is a similar tweak, but comes with even more configuration options as compared to its predecessor, in addition to compatibility with iOS 7.
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Lock screen launchers for iOS have become quite common among the jailbreak community in the past year or so. Tweaks like BuddyLock and AnyLock are just two of the many examples of releases that allow iOS users to make the most of their lock screen. While lock screen launchers have a certain usefulness of their own, some might argue that if a launcher is too feature-rich, it ends up killing the whole purpose of the lock screen. AppBox is an upcoming Cydia tweak that might have finally struck just the right balance between being simple and useful. It allows you to place a handful of app shortcuts on the iPhone lock screen, but that’s not where it stops. The tweak is a platform for third-party lock screen app-specific widgets, which can be used to perform a lot of actions without unlocking your device. With AppBox, it becomes possible to compose texts, post to Facebook, create notes, and do much more. The possibilities are virtually limitless, since other developers can come up with AppBox plugins for different apps.
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iOS 7 completely reimagined the App Switcher, replacing the list of running apps' icons at the bottom with an attractive card-like view. A vast majority of users didn't take too long to get used to the new App Switcher, and maybe that's why a plethora of Cydia tweaks have been released to augment and alter this area of iOS, such as Purge and SwitchSpring that we reviewed recently. As nice as the new App Switcher is, there are still some nostalgic users who miss the iOS 6 version of this feature. For this purpose, you can always turn to tweaks like ControlTask that attempt to give you the best of both worlds. ClassicSwitcher is a new tweak, however, that gets rid of the card UI of the App Switcher altogether, and brings the old multitasking tray back. And the best part is that you can thoroughly customize this tray to suit your needs. Read More

There are plenty of Cydia tweaks based on ideas that are seemingly a bit too simplistic, but there can be no denying their usefulness in an iPhone’s everyday usage. NCObey is a new Cydia tweak that you always subconsciously wanted to have, without really knowing it. With the revamped iOS 7 Notification Center garnering a lot of praise from everywhere, a few people were quick to note that it gets a little annoying when you want to see notifications, and the NC opens up to show the ‘Today’ view. It would have been cool had Apple made the Notification Center a bit more intelligent, so that it showed up the relevant tab depending upon the status of your pending notifications. NCObey does just that and much more for the iOS 7 NC. The tweak lets users choose a default tab, and also has the capability to make the NC open up on the tab you really want, by monitoring the gesture used to launch the Center.
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Android is the platform usually associated with Home screen customization, but iOS can certainly hold its own in that regard if you have a jailbroken device. There are a couple of ways you can tweak your app icons and the Home screen in general even without the jailbreak store, but they are somewhat time-consuming. HomeScreenDesigner is a new Cydia app that allows users to change the default layout of the iOS 7 home screen. You can change the way icons are arranged on Springboard pages, hide their labels, and even apply layouts created by other users to your iPhone. HomeScreenDesigner is a feature-rich package but even if you don’t want to spend too much time trying to create the perfect iPhone screen, the app can still prove to be of great use, thanks to its readymade themes and drag-and-drop configuration options.

Windows is a highly customizable operating system - this is just one of the reasons that it continues to prove so popular. If you want to stamp your mark on your computer, there are countless ways you can do so. Anyone who has made the move to Windows 8.1 will have noticed that while there are all manners of new ways to change the look of your desktop, there are some aspects of Windows that seem to remain stubbornly resistant to change. Once such area is the Windows 8 & 8.1 Charms bar, which appears to be uncustomizable besides changing the accent color that is used elsewhere on the Start screen and other areas of Windows. But with the suitably named Charms Bar Customizer, it is now possible to change the icons that appear in the Windows 8.1 Charms bar to something of your choosing. Read More

The iOS home screen is usually alive with notifications and icon badges, making sure that users get to see the maximum amount of information at a glance. iOS 7 increased this liveliness manifolds by introducing parallax effect and live wallpapers to the iPhone Springboard. Another small addition to the mix is the Clock app’s icon, which displays the current time in the form of an analog clock that even has a moving seconds hand. In the past, Cydia tweaks like WeatherIcon 6 have allowed the jailbreak community to get even more information out of the home screen. The tweak allowed iOS 6 users to configure any app icon to display real-time weather data. It is nice to see that the concept hasn’t died down with iOS 6, as LiveWeatherIcon brings similar functionality to iOS 7. The tweak supercharges the stock Weather app’s icon, adding some beautiful animations and weather-related stats to it.
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One of my pet peeves related to iOS has always been the lack of a delete button for apps installed via Cydia. Despite the fact that it does make some sense to distinguish these apps from the App Store ones, most people don’t like the extra steps involved in getting rid of any jailbreak app that has fallen out of favor. The Cydia store is famous for coming up with solutions to little problems that nag iOS users, and providing tweaks that can allow them to get rid of seemingly permanent fixtures of their iOS devices. In the past, we have seen iMageSynced Remover that lets you delete any picture from the stock Photos app, even if it has been synced with iTunes. So, it is no surprise that someone has come up with CyDelete7. The tweak isn't exactly new, as its predecessor CyDelete has been around for quite some time, but this newer version is aimed specifically at iOS 7. With CyDelete7, users get to easily uninstall Cydia apps like biteSMS, Activator or WinterBoard directly from their Home screen. This saves you the hassle of having to launch the Cydia store, wait for it to finish updating its resources, and then delete the undesired package.
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CCToggles and FlipControlCenter are just two of the tweaks that have been released to augment or customize the iOS 7 Control Center. There are many other tweaks in the jailbreak store that are aimed at the Control Center, which is proof that the new feature has already garnered a lot of attention from developers. Tinkering with the available toggles and options can be really useful in many cases, but if you are looking to alter the overall layout of the Control Center, CleanCC is the tweak to use. With CleanCC, users can hide certain sections of the Control Center, as well as the separators between these sections. In addition to that, the tweak lets you change the dimensions of the Control Center, and it does so intelligently by automatically rearranging the remaining sections to fill up the chosen space. Read More

If you miss the old Spotlight search area from iOS 6, you are certainly in the minority, as iOS 7 offers a much more elegant way of sifting through apps, data, and content on the web. Having said that, there can be no denying the fact that old habits die hard and owing to that, many users frequently find themselves swiping to the right from the edge of their iPhone’s home screen, even though there isn't anything there now. Fav is a new Cydia tweak that puts this phenomenon to good use by letting users assign the defunct Spotlight gesture to launch their favorite app. The tweak isn't too complicated, as all it does is allow users to choose any app installed on their iDevice, and launch it any time they want by swiping from left to right when on the first page of the SpringBoard.
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The iOS 7 lock screen has already inspired Android launchers and tweaks for older iDevices, but now some Cydia releases have started making changes to the lock screen itself. After installing Swipey, you won’t see any visible change to the lock screen, but a very useful new functionality is added there nonetheless. Swipey is an app launcher of sorts, and although it doesn’t add a list of app shortcuts anywhere, you can still use it to quickly launch frequently used apps right from the lock screen. The tweak allows its users to add up to 6 apps to the lock screen in the form of stowed away cards. Just swipe multiple times across the lock screen until you get to your favorite app and as soon as you let the card go, the said app will launch straight away. This way, the launcher does not take up any space at all but can still come in handy on short notice.
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The interactive notifications offered by biteSMS might be great, but a lot of people use it for its visual aspects, too. The stock Messages app in iOS 7, on the other hand, has been flattened, along with the rest of the UI, but the basic color scheme of the app hasn't changed a lot. If you are getting a bit bored of seeing your texts wear the same, old look every day, then Messages Customiser might be a tweak that can help in this regard. This Cydia release doesn't supercharge the Messages app with a boatload of features, but the changes it does allow users to make are quite significant nonetheless. With this tweak, you get to change the color of the chat bubbles to any shade of your choice, and alter the overall tint of the Messages app as well. It is also possible to tinker with the shape and style of these bubbles, while the tweak’s ability to associate photos with SMS threads makes Messages Customiser a must-have for anyone who has recently gained access to the iOS 7 jailbreak.
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When it comes to deep system components customization, what Android gets by default, iOS users get after jailbreaking. Changing the keyboard, replacing the multitasking app switcher, setting a different default web browser and even replacing the main home screen launcher is all possible on Android from the get-go. Consider the system lockscreen; you can get all sorts of third-party lock-screens from the Play Store to replace the stock one with but on iOS, you are stuck with the extremely basic Apple-designed lock-screen. Although I feel satisfied with the lockscreen on my iOS 7-toting iPhone 4S, some customization would certainly have been nice. That's where the CustomLS Cydia tweak for iOS 7 comes in. Read More

While Google Maps is still far superior to Apple Maps in pretty much every way, there are still plenty of users out there who will prefer Apple's solution to Google's because of the former's tighter integration with iOS. Apple Maps as an app is faster and arguably prettier than Google Maps, and is opened automatically when you tap navigation links in other apps including Siri, Messages and Mail, among others. If you are one of those users, and you live in a country where Apple Maps does not offer navigation, check out MapsAllCountries - a new tweak available now on Cydia that enables turn-by-turn directions in the officially unsupported countries. Read More

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About Addictivetips

AddictiveTips is a tech blog focused on helping users find simple solutions to their everyday problems. We review the best desktop, mobile and web apps and services out there, in addition to useful tips and guides for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Read more...